Around the World

Local News from All Over

AFRICA

Not So Sweet

Members
of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni’s own political party are opposing
his plan to raze a swath of rainforest for a sugarcane plantation.

A
Ugandan development company called the Mehta Group is proposing to cut
down some 17,540 acres of the Mabira Forest – a nature reserve since
1932 – to make way for sugar fields. The plan has generated heated
controversy in Uganda. In March, protests against the sugar proposal
roiled the capital city, Kampala. At least four members of parliament
were arrested during marches.

A week later, the state-owned and usually Museveni-friendly newspaper New Vision reported that a survey of parliamentarians showed three-quarters of
lawmakers opposed the sugar proposal. Ugandan political analysts say
that President Museveni has rarely faced opposition to his policies
during the course of his 20-year presidency.

Euan Denholm / ReutersGovernment plans to give away part of the Mabira Forest Reserve have ignited protests in Uganda.

“Even
members of the majority National Resistance Movements (Museveni’s
party) were solidly against the proposal, with 72 percent saying they
would vote ‘No,’” New Vision reported.

Museveni
has said the sugar plantation will provide jobs to a growing population
of mostly poor peasants, and that the country should balance ecological
protection with the need to industrialize the economy. Critics of the
plan say that the sugar estate – which will consume nearly
one-fourth of the nature preserve – will destroy a fragile ecosystem,
spark soil erosion, hurt nearby agriculture, and spur the pollution of
Lake Victoria.

Opponents of the sugar plantation also question
the economic wisdom of sacrificing valuable hardwoods for vulnerable
topsoil. The Ugandan National Forest Authority estimated that the sugar
plantation would produce about 35,000 tons of cane annually, which, if
sold at current world prices of $300 per ton, would earn about $11
million a year. By comparison, the estimated value of sustainably
harvested hardwoods in Mabira is about $167 million. Additionally,
millions of dollars have been invested in ecotourism lodges near the
forest.

“My timber comes from that forest,” John Katangole, a
local carpenter, says. “If they take it away, I will cease being a
carpenter. How am I supposed to live?”

— Reuters, 4/23

Feed the Birds

During
the 1990s, people living along Lake Nakuru in Kenya’s scenic Rift
Valley relentlessly cut down the forests lining the lake, part of a
slash-and-burn campaign to make way for farmland. But when the trees
disappeared, the area’s rainfall diminished, causing the lake to
shrink. And that, in turn, spelled disaster for the huge flocks of
flamingos on which the region’s tourist economy depended.

Once
the world-famous heartland of the majestic birds, the lake turned into
a dead zone. Flamingo carcasses littered the lakeshore. Sickly birds
struggled to stand upright. Stray dogs preyed on the reduced flock. An
area once known for its scenic beauty had become another depressing
symbol of deforestation.

photos.comWhen the famous flamingos of Lake Nakuru disappeared, so did the tourists, battering the local economy. With reforestation, the birds are making a comeback.

“It
was wrong to cut the trees, but we had to,” says Jane Macharia, who,
like so many others, razed the forest to make farmland when she came to
Nakuru 10 years ago with no money and no means to produce food. “We
burnt them all when we started farming. I needed land to survive.”

Erosion
from farming, combined with the effects of global warming, made the
lake virtually uninhabitable for the flamingos. The flock of millions
was reduced to some 10,000. When the flamingos disappeared, so did the
European and American tourists. The local economy was hammered.

“After
all the destruction of the forests, the rivers had no water and all the
flamingos were dying,” Charles Muthui, a senior warden at the Lake
Nakuru National Park, says. “The business of this region depends on
visitors. Destroy the forests and you destroy Lake Nakuru. Then no
flamingos, and no tourism – we know all about that.”

This
awareness has spurred a local campaign to restore the region’s forests.
In the last two years, Nakuru locals have committed themselves to
replanting the forest that they destroyed as an act of desperation in
times of poverty. In 2007 alone, community groups have planted some
3,000 trees. They know that restoring the entire forest will take
decades. Already, however, there are signs of progress: Flamingos are
returning in droves to the sapling-dotted plains.

“Now is the time to make it right,” Macharia says.

— Reuters, 4/23

Nuke Africa?

Southern
Africa is facing power shortages caused by droughts that have lowered
water levels in the dams that power hydroelectric stations, crippling
the region’s economic growth. The resulting power shortages are slowing
investment and threatening expansion plans of local companies.

Africa’s
ongoing energy crisis is possibly the continent’s biggest and most
imminent threat to economic growth. In many countries across southern
Africa, power cuts and blackouts have become commonplacedue to the
increasing gap between energy generation capacities and demand. With
climate change threatening the future of clean, renewable hydropower,
many African nations are now contemplating a shift to nuclear power.

Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe is on record as saying the country’s uranium
deposits would greatly enhance the country’s rural electrification
program.

There are currently 440 nuclear reactors worldwide,
consuming an estimated 171 million pounds of uranium annually. In 2005,
all of the world’s uranium mines combined produced only approximately
102.5 million pounds. The deficit has driven up the price of uranium.

More
than 30 percent of the world’s uranium deposits are found in Africa.
Consequently, a number of European, American, and Australian companies
are scrambling to establish uranium mines and nuclear reactors in the
region.

Concerns have been
raised over whether African countries can pursue uranium enrichment
without becoming involved in the illicit trade of weapons- grade
material, since uranium enrichment involves technology that veers
dangerously close to that used for making nuclear weapons.

“African
countries are in dire need for development, so if uranium mining
emerges as a strategic area of focus to help with their development
agendas, they will seize the opportunity, especially now that the
demand for uranium is soaring,” observed Dr. Nyambe Nyambe, a
consultant at Namibia’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources.

Nyambe
conceded that uranium enrichment and the construction of nuclear
reactors in Africa would necessitate stringent Environmental Impact
Analyses (EIAs) and would demand environmental management strategies to
prevent contamination of the air, land, and water with radiation and
other forms of pollution.

“Mining experts will tell us that they
would extract uranium from underground rocks using environmentally
benign chemical processes,” says Nyambe. “This may be true, but one has
to be cautious to treat every case as unique. As with mining in
general, contamination posed by uranium mining could be controlled if
the design is done correctly. EIAs would be needed, but one wonders
about the extent to which pollution can be avoided, given the troubled
history of mining in general and uranium mining in particular.”

Nyambe
gave an example of the poor environmental management systems of the
present mines of cobalt, copper, lead, and zinc, which are scattered
around southern Africa. Noting that the Zambian town of Kabwe remains
severely contaminated from old mines, Nyambe cautioned: “We will have
to work 200 percent better than we have done so far to curb
contamination.”

— The Statesman, 4/12

ASIA

Making Waves

Scientists
had predicted that the Aral Sea would totally disappear by the year
2020. Now, against all odds, it looks like restoration efforts have
started the sea on a dramatic comeback.

ReutersThe Kazakh village of Karateren lies covered in sand. The draining of the Aral Sea has been called the worst man-made environmental disaster of the 20th century.

Over
the past 40 years, the Aral, located between Kazakhstan to the north
and Uzbekistan to the south, had shrunk to nearly a quarter of its
original size. Today, after four decades of depletion, the sea is
showing signs of life. Experts say the northern part of the sea has
returned to 40 percent of its original size.

The Aral Sea was
once the fourth-largest body of inland water in the world. During the
1960s, Soviet central planners diverted the two main rivers feeding the
sea – the Amu-darya and the Sir-darya – to irrigate cotton fields. As a
result, Uzbekistan became one of the largest cotton producers in the
world.

But agricultural success came at a heavy cost – the sea
began to shrink, the local fishing industry collapsed, and the region’s
climate began to change. The air became saturated with chemical dust
and salt left behind as the increasingly polluted sea retreated,
contributing to the misery of the local population. Ailments – such as
cancer, anemia, and allergies – became widespread, causing the average
life expectancy in the area to plummet from 64 years to 51.

The Aral disaster has been described as the worst human-caused environmental catastrophe of the 20th century.

Water levels fell to the point that the sea split into two separate bodies of water – the Northern Aral and the Southern Aral.

Over the past 15 years, hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent
on environmental efforts to save the rapidly depleting sea. Kazakh
government leaders and World Bank officials say that the Northern Aral,
which is in Kazakhstan, stands a good chance of revival. However, even
by the most optimistic estimates, the complete recovery of the sea is
highly unlikely. The larger Southern Aral, located in Uzbekistan, has
largely been left to diminish further as initial recovery efforts focus
on the north.

— Radio Free Europe, 4/11; Radio Liberty, 4/11

Water War

Thousands
of Chinese villagers clashed with police in April over access to
irrigation water, leading to at least one death and five
injuries.Authorities used water cannons and tear gas to break up an
angry protest in the village of Bomei in the southern province of
Guangdong.

According to the South China Morning Post,
villagers used homemade weapons, including petrol bombs, to keep more
than 1,000 police officers from tearing down a sluice gate villagers
had built in September to divert water to their fields. Residents were
enraged when the local government declared the sluice illegal.

Prime
Minister Wen Jiabao has warned that rural unrest threatens national
stability. On average, there were 230 protests a day last year, most
caused by disputes over land seized by developers in collusion with
corrupt officials. Environmental concerns also have sparked angry
protests.

— The Guardian, 4/14

Wonder Where the Lions Are?

Hundreds
of new guards and closed-circuit TV cameras will soon be used to
protect rare Asiatic lions threatened by poachers and villagers.

photos.comLions sleep more easily knowing that people are working to protect them from poachers.

The
government of Gujarat, the location of India’s Gir Wildlife Sanctuary,
set up an Asiatic Lion Protection Cell after 10 lions were found dead
earlier this year. Six of the lions had been killed by poachers. Police
say poachers kill the lions to sell their bones in Chinese markets. The
bones are used for traditional Chinese medicine, while lion claws are
worn by some men as virility enhancers.

Twenty-one lions have
died over the last five years after falling into open wells in the
park, raising questions about the safety of the wild animals and the
conservation system in the 540-square- mile sanctuary.

“We will
have to make the sanctuary an exclusive lion zone. It is their last
natural abode and India has to protect it,” says conservationist R.M.
Patel.

— Reuters, 4/9

Gandhian Advice

Maneka
Gandhi, the former environment minister of India, says that India has a
long way to go before it must cut back on its energy use. While
criticizing the US for not joining the Kyoto protocol, Gandhi says that
India does not have to reduce its emissions since the country has a
relatively small carbon footprint.

“Per capita energy consumption in India is already among the lowest in the world,”
Gandhi said during an April press conference at the European
Parliament. She recently chaired the Energy Globe Awards, which is hosted by the European Parliament.

“There
is very little to cut back,” Gandhi said, pointing out that in 2005
India consumed 520 kgoe (kilogram of oil equivalent) per person,
compared to the world average of 1,731 kgoe; the European average is
4,282 kgoe.

Asked about the US position on Kyoto – in which
Washington says it won’t cut carbon emissions unless India and China do
likewise – Gandhi replied: “I am quite certain that America is using us
just as an excuse. All of the countries in Asia and Europe still use
less energy and have less CO2 emissions than the US. So for the US to say we will not join the Kyoto Protocol unless India and China join is ridiculous.”

Gandhi
said that coal-fired electricity production will likely increase in
India, but that the country could at this junction move toward r solar
and wind power. “I think we could head off the CO2 crisis. Otherwise we are going to go smack-bang into it.”

The
environmental activist said that she is not in favor of nuclear energy
for India, since she is worried about the country’s lack of regulatory
standards.

“It is always shrouded in secrecy…At the moment
there is a big debate going on nuclear energy in India. My personal
view is that we can’t handle it,” Gandhi said.

As for other
environmental issues, Gandhi said that India and would likely follow
Europe’s lead, placing a large responsibility on European lawmakers.

“Our
bureaucrats who usually don’t know what to do pinch from European laws
and it has a very strong trickle down effect. So if you made the right
laws, we would too.”

Dump the Dump

In
March, hundreds of residents of Gummidipoondi, India and surrounding
villages occupied the proposed site of a landfill that would be used
for dumping 35,000 tons of hazardous industrial wastes. The villagers
were opposing the project’s location – about 550 yards from the nearest
village – saying that it violated the Indian Supreme Court’s
“sanctified site” guidelines and that the wastes would poison
subsurface and ground water, affect agriculture, and threaten public
health.

About 115 companies – including Ford, Hyundai, Nokia, and
Chennai Petroleum – are members of the Industrial Waste Management
Association (IWMA), the organization that was granted permission to
construct the dumpsite. About 40,000 tons of industrial waste collected
from IWMA members’ factories would be dumped on the site.

The
project, launched in 2004, has faced strident protests from
environmentalists and residents, who say the construction is being
carried out without the permission of the local government and against
the wishes of the people.

— The Indian Express, 3/21

EUROPE

Tread Lightly

According to a recent Stockholm Environment Institute study, the Findhorn Foundation’s
ecovillage in Moray, Scotland has recorded the lowest ecological
footprint ever seen in the developed world. The results clearly
demonstrate that it is possible for communities to have a low
environmental impact while retaining a high quality of life.

The
community’s food, home, and energy footprints were found to be 37
percent and 21.5 percent of the national average, respectively.

Community-level
energy generation, local organic food, energy-efficient house design,
low levels of commuting, and sharing of resources were found to be the
major factors.

Jonathan Dawson of GEN-Europe explained how the community was able to achieve these remarkable
results: “A high number of people eat food that is locally grown,
organic, and vegetarian – and this makes a big difference to the size
of the footprint. In addition, many residents live in energy-efficient
houses, and the ecovillage’s four wind turbines not only provide for
the community’s own needs, but make it a net exporter of electricity.”

Findhorn’s
other energy-saving factors include shared washing machines, communal
dining, and local employment, which cuts commuting and has reduced the
community’s car mileage to just six percent of the national average.

Findhorn’s
footprint would have been even lighter had it not been for the number
of international guests who jump on jets and buses to visit the
retreat. So, please, don’t go visit.

Divided on the Dam

The
Brandenburg Gate, which once separated East and West Berlin, again
stood as a dividing point in March; environmental and human rights
activists demonstrated at the landmark to oppose the German
government’s plans to fund construction of the Ilisu hydroelectric dam
on Turkey’s Tigris River.

Reuters/Umit BektasThe massive Ilisu dam project, Turkey’s second largest if completed, would swallow up more than 80 villages and hamlets by the time of its planned completion in 2013.

The
Ilisu hydroelectric power project, the largest planned in Turkey, will
create a reservoir of more than 100-square miles. Supporters project
that the 1,200-MW dam will meet Turkey’s increased energy demand and
promote economic growth. The total budget for the project is roughly
two billion euros ($2.7 billion US); 800 million euros ($1 billion US)
have been allocated to resettle the nearly 55,000 people (mainly ethnic
Kurds) whose homelands will be flooded, to protect cultural assets, and
to repair the environmental damage.

Although the plans to
assist those negatively affected by the project are modeled on
internationally acknowledged standards developed by the World Bank,
activists are not convinced that the proposed compensation will suffice.

“The people in southeast Turkey have experienced enough grief with mega-dams,” says Ercan Ayboga from The Initiative to Save Hasankeyf. “We affected people want to have a say in our future and do not want
the Turkish or the German government to decide what is good for us.”

International Rivers Network Policy Analyst Ann Kathrin Schneider concurs with Ayboga. “This project
violates international standards and international law. The German
government will share responsibility for the environmental and human
rights impacts of this dam.”

Further, NGOs assert that the project could possibly lead to disputes with
neighboring Iran and Syria over water supply. It would appear that the
Turkish government is anticipating conflict. Turkey is considering
plans to deploy 5,000 soldiers to guard the dam site for the “security
of the construction work,” according to the Kurdish press agency Firat.

NORTH AMERICA

Recharge or Recycle

Environment Canada finds that Canadians recycle only about two percent of their batteries,
which means that thousands of tons of battery waste is ending up in
landfills.

In recent years, the number of batteries sent to
landfills has increased sharply due to the growth of personal
electronic devices. By 2010, Canadians will throw out an estimated 495
million rechargeable and non-rechargeable batteries, up from 347
million in 2004.

Batteries contain a range of heavy metals that
can leach from landfills into drinking water supplies. For example,
lead inside the batteries is known to impair intelligence in children;
mercury can damage the human nervous system; and nickel, zinc and
manganese all have some toxic properties.

“The number of
consumer batteries discarded is increasing dramatically with an
increased demand for consumer electronics and the rapid rate at which
new electronic products which require batteries are being introduced
into the market,” the report says.

The report cast doubt on the
effectiveness of voluntary programs that encourage battery recycling.
Many towns and retailers have recycling systems, but the participation
rate is low.

“Producer responsibility” legislation that
requires manufacturers to recover and recycle their products is
necessary, environmentalists say. Manitoba already has such a program,
and a number of provinces are developing proposals to deal with
electronic waste.

US regulations have dramatically reduced the
amount of mercury in batteries, and the European Union has even
stricter laws in managing battery disposal, though the EU also has a
problem with electronic waste. Canada is benefiting from those
regulations, but some counterfeit products still contain large amounts
of mercury.

Canada’s Conservative government says it is
committed to reducing the amounts of chemicals that jeopardize human
health and the environment. “We are concerned that large amounts of
products containing toxic substances are throw in our landfills every
day,” Environment Minister John Baird says in a statement. “The results
of this study will help Environment Canada challenge the battery
industry to improve the recovery and recycling of batteries.”

— Toronto Star, 4/9

Forests (Unfortunately) Expanding

Among
environmentalists, an increase in trees is usually reason for
celebration. But the surprisingly fast expansion of northern Canada’s
boreal forests is cause for concern, as the forest growth is an
indication of climate change’s ecological dislocations.

A new study in the Journal of Ecology reveals that Canada’s tundra is disappearing at a rapid rate as forests
of spruce and shrubs push into once-frozen landscapes. Scientists have
long predicted that warming temperatures would lead to a northward
movement of forests. The recent research shows that ecosystem changes
are happening far more quickly than expected.

photos.comClimate change is displacing caribou from their traditional habitat in the Canadian tundra.

“The
conventional thinking on treeline dynamics has been that advances are
very slow because conditions are so harsh at these high latitudes and
altitudes,” Ryan Danby, the study author and a biologist with the University of Alberta,
says. “But what our data indicates is that there was an upslope surge
of trees in response to warmer temperatures. It’s like it waited until
conditions were just right and then it decided to get up and run, not
just walk.”

The forest expansion could have several negative
consequences. Caribou and wild sheep – whose populations are already
declining in the Yukon – will be forced farther northward as the tundra
habitats fragment and disappear. That migration will, in turn, impact
the Indigenous populations that rely on the animals for food.

Also
of concern is the likelihood that the new trees will create a “negative
feedback loop.” As the treeline advances, the reflectance of the land
surface declines, since trees absorb more sunlight than the tundra.
That light energy is then remitted to the atmosphere as heat, spurring
warming and further fueling the advance of the treeline.

Danby’s
research team used tree rings to date the growth and death of spruce
trees and to track the changes in treeline vegetation. They discovered
that on warm, south-facing slopes, the trees advanced as much as 278
feet in elevation. Tree density grew as much as 65 percent on
north-facing slopes.

“These results are very relevant to the
current debate surround climate change because they provide real
evidence that vegetation change will be quite considerable in response
to future warming, potentially transforming tundra landscapes into open
spruce woodlands,” Danby says.

— ENS, 3/6

Minefield

A
South Dakota state circuit court judge has blocked a uranium
exploration permit that would have allowed a Canadian mining firm to
drill exploratory wells in a region of the Black Hills held sacred by
Native Americans. The judge sent the permit back to the SD Board of
Minerals and Environment after the board admitted they sent the state
archaeologist to the wrong site. The drilling is on hold until a valid
permit is granted, although mine opponents want an injunction until
their appeal challenging the mining plan can be heard.

ACTion for the Environment and Defenders of the Black Hills (DBH) filed the appeal in the state circuit court, under the SD
Administrative Procedures Act, after a fruitless hearing before the SD
Board of Minerals and Environment on January 17 and 18. The groups were
appealing the Board’s decision granting a permit to Powertech Uranium
Corp., a Canadian company, to drill 155 deep exploratory wells in the
southwestern Black Hills. The company already has 4,000 wells in the
area. The Black Hills are considered sacred to members of the DBH and
other Native American nations in the region.

The two
organizations filed the appeal under due process and equal protection
provisions of South Dakota laws and the US Constitution. Some of the
issues raised in the appeal include: The permit was signed by the Board
before the plaintiffs were given the opportunity to present their
objections; the Board failed to consider the plaintiffs’ written
exhibits; the Board failed to provide Lakota language interpreters for
two of the elderly members of the DBH, making it impossible for the
Board to understand the concerns of the elders; and the Board‘s
practice of allowing the mining company to present data on the quality
of the underground water when the mining process itself will
contaminate the water. This practice presents a conflict of interest,
as it would be in the mining companies’ best interest for the water to
be already contaminated with uranium and radioactive materials.

Legal
counsel is being provided by the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which has already
experienced pollution from past uranium mining projects in the
southwestern Black Hills.

OCEANIA

Cold Comfort

With
climate change making the planet increasingly hot, perhaps the
fashionable getaway of the future will be to icy landscapes instead of
tropical resorts.

photos.comEnvironmentalists fear that the growing number of visitors to Antarctica will disturb wildlife.

That
could be one of the conclusions of the sharp increase in tourism to
Antarctica. This year, some 30,000 people are expected to travel to the
cold continent, a quadrupling from a decade ago. Another 37,000 people
will visit Antarctic waters on boat trips without venturing ashore.

Increasingly,
tourists who travel to Antarctica to observe penguins, seals, and
seabirds are visiting – not just in small research parties, as in the
past – but on giant cruise ships, according to a report in the The Guardian. Earlier this year the 100,000-ton Golden Princess became the biggest cruise ship to enter Antarctic waters. The 3,700-
passenger liner – complete with a casino, five swimming pools, and
miniature golf course – is just one of many luxury ships that now pass
by Antarctica as part of longer voyages. Passages on Princess Cruises,
which operates the Golden Princess and Star Princess that visit Antarctica, can cost as much as $5,600 US.

The
spike in tourism is starting to have a harmful impact on the area’s
delicate ecosystems. Environmentalists fear that the growing number of
visitors will disturb wildlife, trample rare mosses and lichens, and,
perhaps accidentally introduce non-native species to the unique
bioregion. There is also a risk that the growing ship traffic could
result in accidents that cause oil spills. In January the Norwegian MS Nordkapp ran aground at a spot called Deception Island, spilling a small amount of fuel.

John
Shears of the British Antarctic Survey says the incident was a “wake-up
call.” He says that a larger spill of heavy fuel closer to the shore
would endanger thousands of penguins.

“It would be very, very
difficult to clean up the coast and also to do something about the
wildlife that got coated in fuel,” Shears says. “Nature is a great
healer and will clean everything up over time, but because heavy fuel
is so persistent it could be several years before the environment
righted itself.”

Tourism on the continent is regulated by the
International Association of Antarctic Tour Operators, which sets
detailed guidelines. But participation is voluntary, and there are at
least two tour operators who are not members. A 1961 international
treaty established Antarctica as natural reserve devoted to peace and
science.

Advocates who are working to strengthen the rules
governing tourism in the region also point out that the growing cruise
line traffic carries another environmental consequence – speeding up
global warming, which is disproportionately affecting the planet’s
polar regions.

“The Antarctic is a global warming hot spot,”
Shears says. “There have been temperature rises of 3°C over the last 30
years, which has resulted in widespread melting of glaciers and ice
shelf collapse. … When those ships set sail in the Antarctic, they’re
burning fuel, so they’re adding to emissions and helping cause climate
change.”

— The Guardian, 4/30

Diabolical Cancer

Tasmanian devils may soon be relocated to Maria Island near Australia to avert their extinction by a contagious cancer.

“The path to extinction is looking pretty certain on Tasmania,” said William Karesh of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, who organized a workshop in Australia to help the government and biologists develop a plan to save the devils.

Cancer
among Tasmanian devils was first noticed in the mid-1990s in the
island’s northeast, where 90 percent of the animals have since died.
The disease is spreading south and west, and scientists estimate that
within five years, there will be no disease-free population in Tasmania
– the only place in the world where the devils exist outside zoos.

The
move, which state and federal governments are expected to approve
within weeks, is controversial because scientists can only guess at the
impact the introduced carnivores will have on the uninhabited island’s
ecology.

Luke Hunter, director of the Wildlife Conservation
Society’s great cats program, said the plan did not strike him as
overly risky since Maria Island is similar to the devils’ natural
habitat.

“Devils maybe never got (to Maria Island), but it’s not
a stretch of the imagination that they can survive there,” says Hunter,
who is an expert on animal translocation programs. Since devils are
primarily scavengers, they are unlikely to threaten other animals on
the island, he says.

Maria Island would be the first of several
islands to become quarantined colonies of wild devils, which are
currently not found on any of the thousands of Tasmanian islands.

Advocates
hope that if devils are wiped out on the Tasmanian mainland, the
disease will die along with them, and the relocated animals can then be
safely reintroduced to their original home.

— AP, 4/11

SOUTH AMERICA

Saying No to Soy

In
March, the Brazilian government closed a large soy processing and
shipping facility in the Amazon rainforest because the plant did not
complete an environmental impact assessment. The closure of the plant,
which is owned by agribusiness giant Cargill, marks a victory for
rainforest protection, say activists with Greenpeace, who have campaigned for years to shutter the operation in the forest’s Santarem region.

ReutersBrazil has become the world’s second largest producer of soy, often at the expense of the rainforest.

A 2006 report by Greenpeace, “Eating up the Amazon,”
uncovered the devastating effects of soy production in the world’s
largest rainforest. At least eight percent of the open space in the
Amazon’s Santarem region is being used for soy cultivation. Much of the
soy is processed into chicken feed and then shipped to Europe, where it
is fed to chickens sold in fast food outlets.

“This is
important … for the Amazon rainforest and for its people,” Paulo
Adario, Greenpeace’s Amazon Campaign coordinator, says. “We trust that
Cargill will respect this decision and conduct a broad environmental
impact assessment, which will result in concrete measures to minimize
the impacts of its port and soy expansion in this region.”

When
Cargill requested a license to build the $20 million port, the company
did prepare an environmental control plan. But that document only
covers accident response and does not fulfill Brazilian law’s
requirement to analyze the impact of Cargill’s agricultural activities
in the Amazon. In 2000, Brazilian judges granted an injunction to
suspend operations at the Cargill port.The company has spent the last
seven years appealing the decision, but lost each appeal.

The
shutdown of Cargill’s Santarem plant occurred at the request of the
Brazilian Environmental Agency, which called on the federal prosecutors
to “inspect and immediately stop the operations of the Cargill port as
well as condemn the North American multinational for illegal operation.”

Greenpeace
campaigners are hoping the plant closure marks a new era of
environmental governance in the region. The group is now turning its
attention to grain storage facilities located in the transition zone
between the grasslands of the Cerrado and the Amazon forests in the
state of Mato Grosso, where deforestation for soy production is
occurring most rapidly.

— ENS, 3/29

President Rails Against Chevron

No, that’s not a headline from The Onion.

The
president in question is Rafael Correa, the leftist leader of Ecuador,
who in April endorsed a long-standing legal battle against
ChevronTexaco when he lashed out at the oil giant for failing to clean
up damage done to the country’s Amazon region.

While leading
journalists on a tour of the oil pit operation that Texaco ran from the
1960s through the 1990s – and where the company’s subsidiary dumped an
estimated 18 billion gallons of oily wastewater during the course of
operations – Correa said that the company’s ecological crimes surpassed
that of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

AmazonWatchResidents of the Ecuadorian Amazon have been plagued by health problems due to Chevron/Texaco’s improper oil disposal.

“Let
the whole world see the barbarity that Texaco has committed,” Correa
told the assembled journalists and supporters as he chatted with a
farmer, 76-year-old Manuel Salinas, who says that his land was ruined
by the oil runoff. Since being elected in 2006, Correa, 43, has marked
himself as part of the new wave of Latin American populists, frequently
lashing out at neoliberal economic policies and lambasting
multinational corporations. “The damage caused is incredible. It is
irreversible.”

Squatting down to pick up a handful of greasy
dirt, Correa summed up the situation with a soundbite: “Soil with oil,
friends. … But it would seem that what happens in the Third World
doesn’t matter.”

Ecuadorian and North American environmentalists – led by the organization Amazon Watch – have been working for more than a decade to compel Texaco (which
merged with Chevron in 2001) to pay for cleaning up the former drilling
site near the town of La Victoria. The campaigners first tried to bring
a case before a US federal court, but were unable to do so for lack of
legal standing. In 2003, they launched a lawsuit in Ecuador. The
plaintiffs – 30,000 Amazon Indigenous people and settlers – are seeking
$6 billion in damages.

As the case slowly moves its way through
the Ecuadorian courts, advocates have maintained a grassroots campaign
to convince Chevron to settle the case. The day before Correa visited
the oil site, Amazon Watch campaigners, accompanied by leaders of the
Secoya tribe, addressed the ChevronTexaco shareholders’ meeting to call
on Chevron executives and stockholders to settle. “Our struggle is not
for money,” Humberto Piaguaje, a Secoya member, told the shareholders.
“We want you to give us back our lives. We want you to let us live in
peace and harmony with nature.”

Correa’s criticism of
ChevronTexaco could help decide the case, which is scheduled to
conclude next year. Correa has said that his government supports
“affected populations” and would help the plaintiffs collect evidence.

A Chevron lawyer told the AP that he was “sorry the president has taken sides.” Funny – Chevron
executives never seem sorry when the US president takes their side.